PROGRAMME 2021/2022
Saturday 11th September 2021
Subject: "The Ancient Egyptian Harem: Drudgery or Debauchery?"
​
Speaker: Dylan Bickerstaff
​
We have been told to cast-aside any notions we had of an Egyptian Harem filled with beautiful young women, there to attend to the king’s every pleasure. Apparently, it was nothing like the perfumed pleasure palace at the Ottoman court. Indeed, work at Gurob has revealed something that more closely resembles a Victorian Workhouse. Can this be correct? First, we should consider what the Ottoman harem was actually like; and then we must seek out as many sources as possible to show us who occupied the Harem, and what went on there – not least, a number of well-known Harem Conspiracies. Let us look at the full picture.
Saturday 9th October 2021
​
Subject: "The Genesis of the Royal Necropolis of Thebes"
Speaker: Prof. Aidan Dodson
​
We will look at the early history of Thebes as a royal cemetery. This began during the Eleventh Dynasty, when the local rulers’ role in the reunification of the country created the necropolis of El-Tarif and Deir el-Bahari, and resumed during the latter part of the Second Intermediate Period, as a burial place of the rump native regime during the dominion of the Hyksos.
Finally, after the brief interruption of the building of the pyramid-complex of Ahmose I at Abydos, Thebes became the place for royalty to be seen dead in until the end of the New Kingdom, with the short Amarna interval. The earliest part of this phase is, however, problematic as regards the funerary monuments of Amenhotep I and the first two Thutmoses, and Professor Dodson’s presentation will include his own new proposals regarding them.
​
The AGM follows the talk
Saturday 13th November 2021
Subject: "A World Beneath the Sands: Adventurers and Archaeologists in the Golden Age of Egyptology"
Speaker: Prof. Toby Wilkinson
​
What could be more exciting, more exotic or more intrepid than digging in the sands of Egypt in the hope of discovering golden treasures from the age of the pharaohs?
Our fascination with ancient Egypt goes back to the ancient Greeks. But the heyday of Egyptology was undoubtedly the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This golden age of scholarship and adventure is neatly book-ended by two epoch-making events: Champollion's decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822. And the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon a hundred years later.
In ‘A World Beneath the Sands’, the acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson tells the riveting stories of the men and women whose obsession with Egypt's ancient civilisation drove them to uncover its secrets. Champollion, Carter and Carnarvon are here, but so too are their lesser-known contemporaries. Their work – and those of others like them – helped to enrich and transform our understanding of the Nile Valley and its people, and left a lasting impression on Egypt, too.
Travellers and treasure-hunters, ethnographers and epigraphers, antiquarians and archaeologists: whatever their motives, whatever their methods, all understood that in pursuing Egyptology they were part of a greater endeavour – to reveal a lost world, buried for centuries beneath the sands.
​
N.B This talk will be at 7.30pm in order to allow this talk to be given from Fiji where Toby lives at present!
Toby has a new book release, from which this talk is derived
Saturday 11th December 2021
Subject: "Edward Poynter’s ‘Israel in Egypt’: Archaeology, Art, Religion, History and Egypt in Victorian Britain and Ireland"
​
Sir Edward Poynter’s huge painting of 1867, now in the Guildhall Art Gallery in London, attempts to recreate an archaeologically accurate vision of ancient Egypt. It displays Poynter’s familiarity with the publications available, and also the debates and understanding of a subject that was of enormous interest to the Victorian public. Close inspection of the painting reveals some surprises to a modern audience, but also Poynter’s awareness of the views of contemporary scholarship.
Speaker: Dr. Robert Morkot, Exeter University
​
Saturday 8th January 2022
Members' Annual Lunch - We are sorry, the lunch was unfortunately cancelled owing to Covid restrictions
Saturday 12th February 2022
Subject: "Egyptian Mythology: A Traveller’s Guide from Aswan to Alexandria"
Speaker: Dr Garry Shaw
​
In this lecture, we’ll explore the myths and legends of ancient Egypt while travelling along the Nile from Aswan to Alexandria. As we stop at key locations, we’ll meet the gods and goddesses worshipped there by the ancient Egyptians, learn about their mythology, and see the monuments associated with them. Taking evidence from across Egyptian history, the talk will include famous myths, legends, and stories, and some that are less well known. We’ll also look at how these myths can be interpreted in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the ancient Egyptian world view.
This talk is based on the lecturer’s latest book: Egyptian Mythology: A Traveller’s Guide from Aswan to Alexandria (Thames & Hudson, 2021).
Change of the speaker and the topic of the lecture!
​
Saturday 12th March 2022
Subject: "Supersize Structures to Sun Temples :
The evolution of funerary monuments during the Old Kingdom"
Speaker: Julie Marshall
​
In November 2019, I was fortunate enough to travel to Northern Egypt to see, among many other things, a number of the Old Kingdom funerary monuments. The tour was structured so that it not only included the popular and familiar tourist attractions at Giza and Saqqara, but also the less well known, including the early 4th Dynasty Dashur Pyramids, the Fifth Dynasty pyramids at Abusir and their corresponding Sun Temples at Abu Ghurob; and the occasional rather dangerous tomb not currently open to the public, such as the 2nd Dynasty gallery tomb of King Nynetjer close to Djoser’s Step Pyramid.
This wonderful trip to Egypt forms the basis of this talk where we will examine, with the help of numerous photographic images taken at the sites, the changes in the size and architectural design of royal funerary structures from the Second Dynasty to the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty. We will also consider the increasingly important relationship between the king and the sun, first evident in earlier dynasties but taking on far more significance in the Fifth Dynasty. Although pyramids were drastically decreasing in size, funerary structures were becoming multi -faceted with Pyramids linked to their corresponding Sun Temples. The end of the Fifth Dynasty also sees, the emergence of the first religious texts to appear in Pyramids, and indeed one of the oldest pieces
of religious writings to appear anywhere in the world, with the aptly named Pyramid Texts found in the pyramid of King Unas.
Saturday 9th April 2022
Subject: "Living in Lahun, A Bustling Middle Kingdom Town"
Speaker: Lucia Gahlin, UCL
​
Lahun (or Kahun as Petrie called it) is a rare example of an excavated Middle Kingdom town. Located at the entrance to the Faiyum, and closely associated with the pyramid and temple of Senwosret II, in its heyday Lahun may well have been the most important town in Egypt. Flinders Petrie excavated part of this intriguing site in 1889, providing a window into this once bustling town. The remains of housing and a vast array of archaeological finds provide evidence for what it must have been like to live in Kahun all those millennia ago. Of particular interest are the papyri that have survived to shed light on many aspects of daily life including inheritance, gynecology, and veterinary practices. This lecture will explore life at Lahun through the house remains, objects and texts.
Saturday 14th May 2022
​
Subject: "Amun does Not Camp on the Beach"
​
Speaker: Huub Pragt
​
The Egyptian high official Wenamun goes from Thebes on a special mission to Byblos. He is sent by Herihor, who at that time rules over Upper Egypt. The large wooden barque in the temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak needs renewal with wood of silver firs. When Wenamun moored his cargo ship for the first time at the coastal town of Dor, he was robbed by one of his crew members. Wenamun held the Prince of Dor responsible for this situation and forced him to track down the thief. Unfortunately, the lines that follow in the papyrus contain some lacunae.
The translation of this patchy part makes clear that Wenamun in the meantime has arrived at Byblos. Somewhat further the text makes clear that Wenamun is not very welcomed by the local ruler. All Egyptologists agree however on one point; Wenamon has now also lost his cargo ship and stays with the cult statue of Amun in a tent on the beach of Byblos. Strangely, from the text we may conclude that Wenamun has just achieved an important success. The common translation reads: ‘I celebrated my success in my tent on the beach of the port of Byblos.
I [….] of Amun-of-the-Way and I placed his property in it’.
Egyptologist Huub Pragt has a completely different interpretation for this passage. In his talk he will show that Wenamun's journey was much less unfortunate than previously thought.
Saturday 11th June 2022
​
Subject: "Roman Period Faience Factory at Memphis"
​
Speaker: Prof. Paul Nicholson
The site of Kom Helul at Memphis was first noticed as a faience production site by Flinders Petrie in around 1886 but he did not get to investigate the site until 1908. In the interim it had been partly plundered, but his excavations of 1908 and 1910 did yield a series of kilns. These kilns seemed to be of a particularly unusual form in having no
separation between fuel and saggars (containers for the faience).
In 2000 a Cardiff University team began new work at the site and were, over a period of years, able to gain a better understanding of how the faience produced at the site was made and how the kilns worked. It was also possible to suggest a where some of the looted material may have ended up.
This talk will look at Petrie’s work at Memphis alongside the recent work and offer a new interpretation of the technology and its place in the Roman world.
Due to copyright and to protect the intellectual property rights of the presenter and privacy of attendees, the Society is unable to record and publish the presentations, or to allow others to do so.
To remain within The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as updated on 1 February 2021.
Please do not record, photograph or screenshot any part of the presentations.